Gym Class Memoir

It's Sunday afternoon and I know I need to workout. I don't want to. It's hot and I feel like taking a nap instead. That's my way of avoiding a workout. Instead of a taking a nap I decided to write a blog post because it will make me feel silly for procrastinating. So a thought has taken over. Why was I not properly educated in physical fitness? I took gym classes from pre-K through 10th grade. It seems that I should have understood something.

Honestly, I don't have any good memories attached to physical education past the 2nd grade. 3rd grade is when I remember running the dreaded "mile". We would line up on our field, our coach would tell us how many times we had to run around to complete a mile, she would blow her whistle and we were off. For a girl who enjoyed riding her bike and walking, running felt weird. My teacher never encouraged me. She would just snap at me, "Keep going." She never said it in a positive way either. My best advice came from another classmate would told me to bend my elbows and keep them at my side so I met less resistance.

Fast forward to middle school. Chunky Karen had to run in front of her peers. I inherited my mother's knees. There is nothing wrong with them but they have a distinct shape and the back of them aren't magazine-cover ready. Oh and I should point out that I wasn't completely out of shape in middle school. I took jazz classes, Irish Step Dancing classes, was part of the town cheer leading squad and was part of my school's competitive cheer leading squad. I could dance like nobody's business but I could not run for long periods of time.

I had a really great gym teacher, but of course he focused his energies into the boys and girls who were athletic and could already master running and other exercises. He cheered me on when I did 40 push-ups in a row and told me I could complete that mile no matter what, even if I had to walk. There was the positive I needed, but I wish someone had taught me how to pace myself when I ran. How to start small and build up to completing a mile run in under 15 minutes - that is usually how long it took. And when I did feel confident the resident girl bully make sure I felt ten times as small. I remember her whispering, very loudly to a popular girl in our class who I used to be friends with, "Why do the back of her knees look like that? Yours don't and mine don't." It was humiliating.

Now I am in high school. Once again the dreaded "mile" run is the fixture for 10th grade P.E. and I sucked. There are no other words than that. And once again my P.E. teacher took to the students who were part of sports teams and could already perform with outstanding times. Once again I wish someone would have taken the time to train me, to teach me.

As an educator I realize how important is to celebrate the successes of the students who understand a concept right away. I was trained on how to keep them climbing up the success ladder. On the other hand I have to realize how important it is to focus on the student who is struggling. It's not that the student will never understand the concept being taught it's just that he or she needs more guidance. I'll give that student equal attention to make sure that he or she is successful. It's differentiated instruction, it's scaffolding, it's support. Why did my gym teachers never do that for me? I grew up thinking I was just not meant to be good at anything athletic. So now that I am trying on my own it's really hard. I still have that mind frame that if I fail at my exercises it's because I was never really meant to be good at them any way. I am just the book smarts kind of girl.

I'm 24 and I feel like I have to start training myself to get more physical activity in my life as if I were 6 again. So be it. I hope that children out there who were like me growing up are getting better learning opportunities in health than me. I hope that there is a gym teacher out there who believes every child can achieve physical fitness but some may have to have more guidance along the way. Personally, I am going to teach myself to be better so that I can teach my own children. I don't want them to end up like me in their young adult lives.

Well that was all the encouragement I needed. Here's to day one of C25K. I'll tell you all about that. I am so excited!

DIY Frenzy

Happy Monday! Last Monday I was dreading waking up. Mondays are such life suckers. However, it's the first Monday job free. I'm going to enjoy it until bed time and then tomorrow I am on the job hunt. My friend, who graduated from college this past May, is in the same boat as me. So tomorrow will be dedicated to dropping resumes off at the many schools in our district so we can be classroom teachers. I feel like a duck without a pond right now. Hopefully that will be remedied soon.

To take up my time I've been on a cleaning whirlwind. My hubs and I have been in our new apartment for almost three months now and nothing is truly put away in its proper place. Today I took the time to do the regular house keeping and then went into DIY and organization mode. The underneath of my bathroom sink is super organized. My goal is to get some kind of shelving under there. I also put some awesome pictures from my Scotland calendar into pretty frames I got for Christmas. I'll have to have my hubs put them up because he likes to point out that I can never center or level anything I hang. That's fine with me; it's less work.

The final thing I finished for today's DIY fest was my visual weight loss reminder (or as I learned in W.W. - an anchor). The final product came out cute considering it was my first experience with Mod Podge.

To make these I used two washed Starbucks Frappucino bottles. Then I put orange scrap paper labels and hearts on them with Mod Podge. After the labels dried up I wrote down "pounds to melt" and "pounds evaporated" on each to measure my weight loss. There are 100 beads in the first bottle because I intend to lose 100 pounds. That will get me close to the weight I felt good at. I can't wait to move my first bead over to the "pounds evaporated" bottle.

Only a week until spin and Zumba classes begin. I can't wait!

The Proof Is In the Non-fat Pudding

What a dreary Thursday it has been in the wonderful Sunshine State. From 4:00 this morning until later in the evening it has been nothing put pouring rain, thunder and lightning. It was an icky way to spend the last day of school. Eh, it probably reflected my mood too.

I weighed in today and the results were annoying as ever. I purged a lot from my diet this week and stuck to my points so I expected a result that would make me go "Wahoo!" What I saw this morning wanted to make me throw my scale off of our second floor lanai. I'm still at 247 lbs. I learned two things from this. First, eating on my points and staying on track will keep my current weight maintained. Second, I need exercise to get the fat going.

I am not going to compare my weight loss experience to this one. That would drive me nuts. I do think, however, that my metabolism was different 4 years ago and that is why I got away with a 6 pound weight loss my first week without any exercise. Man, this means I have to break out the old Walk Away the Pounds AGAIN! I'm getting so bored of that exercise routine, but since I'm unemployed as of tomorrow, I don't dare purchase a new one. Perhaps I have to do a YouTube search for some fun things to do before spin and Zumba start on the 18th.

I'm off to a bad start with this new Weight Watchers week too. I only tracked breakfast and then I stopped. After school we went to the principal's home for an end of the school year lunch. The last I had anything to eat was 7:30 this morning and I wasn't able to eat until 2:30 later that afternoon. Another colleague and I treated the pot-luck like a buffet and went up twice for food. A lot of us did though, which proves that teachers are stress eaters. My plan is to just tell myself that my 49 extra weekly points are no longer available and count like a Weight Watchers prison warden tomorrow. And exercise.

Okay so I finished all of last week's goals. I will post a picture of my "visual representation of my weight loss" tomorrow. Now for this week's goals.

1. Get 30 minutes of movement in at least three times this week.
2. Track my points.
3. Not throw my scale off of our second floor lanai.

Now it's bedtime because I have a classroom to finish cleaning up tomorrow. Thank goodness that Friday is here and I can't look forward to sleeping in on Saturday!